Kogi: The People Have Spoken!

Captain Idris Wada, the newly elected Governor Kogi State, Nigeria.


Kogi: The People Have Spoken!
~ By Ibrahim Usman.

‘The voice of the people is the voice of God’, that adage is from the Greek; the civilization which gave us democracy as we know it today, and the statement was speaking in defense of the principle which accords absolute respect to the decision of the people of a nation in choosing their own leaders for themselves. No more the time of imposition of emperors and kings upon a hapless citizenry, no more the passage of the mantle of leadership from one son to th~ e other within a royal dynasty, with absolute disregard to the will of the people. In this era, it is what the people want that matters and nothing more! That is why it is called democracy: government of the people, for the people and by the people. Where the will of the man on the street is not represented, it becomes an aberration!

The people of the Kogi state have gone to the polls to demonstrate their absolute power in choosing who will govern them. They have voted and the man they voted is Captain Idris Wada. For the rest of eternity, this truth can never be disputed. The people of Kogi has spoken; let their voice be respected as the voice of God, let no man be involved in a judgment that disputes honesty. It is the people we are talking about, here, their affairs and their future; we are not talking about a company that company that belongs to a board of directors, Kogi State does not belong to any political party or to any group of individuals. Let us stop behaving as if some people have government as their birth right and the government house as the father’s compound. Let us respect the throne of democratic leadership as the crucible upon which the people’s future is determined and let the rules of ascendancy be based on merit, without any unnecessary sentiments. Nigerians have grown beyond the politics of vested interests. It has failed us. It has created problems that threaten to destroy our nation. Nigerians are looking for leaders who will buy us a modicum of true progress, infrastructural development and a balance of our economic equations. Anybody who does not have what it takes to provide those should forget about contesting for a political office because Nigerians know.

The electorate has become well informed and wise and that wisdom is necessitated by a desperate crave for survival. You can no longer fool the Nigerian electorate of today, they know all the bio-data of every political contestant and they know who will govern them. So let us stop thinking in lines of self deception and face the truth, the electorate know what they are doing.

Captain Idris Wada is the candidate that Kogi People have been longing for and with his eventual election; they now heave a sigh of relief. The people of Kogi State know Captain Idris Wada thoroughly. His entry into the political race had the entire citizenry excited. He is a candidate with no excess political baggage. No history of political prostitution can be traced to his name, which is less than can be said of his political opponents. They know that he is an astute pilot who has been flying for 35 whole years. Pilots are very well trained to be absolutely careful, meticulous and articulate in their decision making, because while in flight, the slightest mistake could lead to a disaster. The people knew that Captain Wada will bring his the excellent attributes of his training as a pilot to the table that is why they went for him. In the whole of Africa, the only pilot who has ascended to the throne of leadership was Captain Jerry Rawlings of Ghana. He is the man who took Ghana from a state of decrepitude to a state of stardom; that is what Kogi people are yearning for in Captain Idris Wada and they have no doubt that he will deliver; they have no doubt that Kogi State will be an enviable state under captain Wada.

Already his campaign records are a proof of what the people are to expect from his government. Captain Wada’s campaign manifesto has no bogus promises that characterize the stupid political shenanigans of old Nigerian politicians. He came to the table with realistic promises. The people looked at him and knew that he was saying the truth. His rallies were absolutely devoid of any political intimidations; not for him the politics of thugery and intimidation; the evil that led to the growth of militias and Boko Haram in the country. His rallies were a breath of fresh air to the people of Kogi State. It was with joy that they went to the polls to elect their new child of promise. And why not? In his characteristic thoroughness, Captain Wada’s campaign trail blazed a new record with the importance accorded the masses. He gave so much detail to his grassroots politics that he toured all the 21 local government areas in the state and maintained a ten man election campaign team in all the wards.

This is only reminiscent of president Obama’s ‘Change We Need’ presidential campaign project in America and like the Americans, the Kogi People voted for Change, they voted for a renaissance, a paradigm shift, a breath of new life. They voted for the man who will solve their problems; Captain Idris Wada.

It is not only in Kogi State; Nigerians now vote for individuals whom they know will deliver them from their problems. They vote irrespective of Party affiliations and any other considerations apart from personal merit. Dr. Chris Ngige won a senatorial seat in Anambra State under the platform of ACN. Anambra State is a state dominated by PDP and APGA. But Ngige was voted as a result of his achievements as a governor while he was under PDP. So for the Nigerian electorate, the only yardstick is personal merit. The people cannot be fooled by the politics of mudslinging and smear tactics in which old time politicians are still using to their own detriment in the country. Perhaps, if Prince Abubakar Audu had channeled half the funds he invested in blackmailing Captain Wada, into true grass roots campaign, he might have achieved better results at the polls. Alas, he went the self destructive way of smear tactics and only succeeded in incurring the ire of the voting masses and giving, making them to sympathize massively with Captain Idris Wada. Anybody can be sick; infact, a man who was never sick does not exist! One begins to wonder at the lack of integrity and cheap opportunism of the UCH staff that would go as far as unearthing Captain Wada’s records for clandestine reasons! If truly they want to protect the masses, why didn’t they raise alarm over the fact that Captain Wada was a pilot with the wrong medical records? Will these people come out in court to defend these records and the implied negative effects which Abubakar Audu and co are alluding to? By the way, are medical records in hospitals not supposed to be sacrosanct and private, available only to other doctors for reasons of the patient’s well being? The staff of UCH who perpetrated this dastardly act should all be sacked; they are a disgrace to the medical profession! They have failed the Hippocratic Oaths they swore as medical doctors, they should be ejected from the medical profession.

Captain Wada was loved by the Indigenes because of his carriage, sincerity and honesty. His peers at the aviation support group, aided his campaign by partnering with CEDIO RURAL OUTREACH MINISTRY, a faith based NGO. The team went into the hinterlands of Kogi with over 13 doctors, 54 nurses and security personnel and logistic staff. They performed 43 eye surgeries, 131 difficult surgeries such as fibroid, appendectomy, lipoma, Hernia and many other surgeries. While Abubakar Audu and his cohorts were busy looking for blackmail secrets, Captain Wada and his supporters were busy reaching out to the grasss roots with free medical care, giving them a fore taste of what will come after his elections. Who is fooling who, why should the results at the polls surprise any right thinking person?

The gratitude must also be expressed towards the government of Alhaji Ibrahim Idris for creating a level playing ground for the elections and refusing to be influenced by politics of vested interest, intimidation, blackmail and corruption. Without this fairness, the will of the people would not have prevailed.

Congratulations Capt Idris Wada,
Congratulations the Governor Elect of Kogi State.

~ Ibrahim Usman writes from Okene, Kogi state.

Tweet